Linggom Roy M. Napitupulu

The Internet can be a hazardous place to mingle around, and it’s apparent people are taking all the precautions they can to protect themselves and their children. However, personal safety isn’t the only concern when it comes to the Internet. There are far more areas where the Internet is causing some serious physical harm, maybe not directly, but to the environment and indirectly to us. When everything is about how “green” something is, it is not hard to understand that someone analyzed the Internet in that way.

Even though I have personally never thought about the Internet in that sense, it is striking to see someone take pretty much everything into consideration and reflect upon its effect on the environment. The result? Well, let’s just say that I am more than surprised we haven’t caught this before. After all, everything else is heavily scrutinized and thoroughly checked in order to optimize its “green” capacity, so why shouldn’t this?

WordStream sponsored an infographic in honor of Earth Day 2011 that is quite mesmerizing if you ask me. It brings all of the different aspects together and bundles them up into an understandable format. I have always been a fan of great infographics that give you that extra perspective (one of the reasons that Bit Rebels came to be), and this one certainly fits the bill. I am not only amazed by the statistics, but I am astounded that Google alone produces over 260,000 Kg CO2 every month. That’s enough to power a regular sized freezer for over 5,400 years.

And to go further into the analysis, the process it takes to power Google is 3,900,000 kWh. That’s enough to power and run 5,000,000 loads of laundry. Those are indeed staggering numbers, and if put together with Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, I am sure we would marvel about the enormous numbers being presented to us. Don’t get me wrong, the services I am sure produce more than enough income for several millions of people to pay for this kind of environmental consumption. However, the numbers don’t lie, and it would also be interesting to see what exactly the effect of all this CO2 is doing to our planet. If anyone has an example, please feel free to present it to us. I am dying to know.